Running Red
by Citalopram
Summary: He never thought it would happen, but it did, and now everything Grantaire knows about the dead - and the undead - is being put to use as the Amis fight for their lives in an empty world, full to the brim with the walking dead. Modern Zombie AU, multiple pairings.
1. Infection

**_Citalopram_ is finally back with the promised Zombie AU. Long time coming, I know, but this whole 'applying for university' and 'life' thing is hard, man.**

**This is your prologue - the official chapter one will be coming within the next few days once it's typed up and edited. So enjoy, dear ones, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way/shape/form own Les Mis, zombies or the InVS (Institut de veille sanitaire) mentioned.**

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It didn't all happen at once. Realistically, it wouldn't. You wouldn't wake up one morning to screams and blood at your front door, or your neighbour's door, or the door of the local convenience store.

No, it would start slowly, people coughing on the streets and spitting up blood, and a far away news report – _MIAMI FACE-EATING ATTACK LASTED 18 AGONIZING MINUTES_ – that slipped through the cracks of news reporting because it was halfway around the world, and probably boiled down to drugs. Or terrorism.

But then it would get more frequent, headlines appearing in local papers, on websites; the television would report a cannibal attack outside of the city. Then it would report that hospitals are being closed down by the _InVS_ due to an unknown infection that causes madness in its victims, makes them want to _eat_ people.

And then the television would go dead. Static, forever.

That's exactly what it was like for a group of students and friends in Paris. One day everything was normal – they went to class, to the local café, to their homes and the homes of each other – and then… it wasn't.

First they couldn't get any television channels (much to the chagrin of one, who couldn't access the news channel), then the radio stations fizzled out into short beeps punctuated with _'we are sorry, this station is off air'_, and after that it was phone lines, cell service, the internet.

It was by ultimate chance that Grantaire, jack-of-all-trades Grantaire with no distinct direction in his life but with many talents and roads he could take, realised before the streets were coated red what was about to happen in their city, and implemented a vague contingency plan including where to meet should ravenous, flesh-eating humans suddenly begin taking over the streets of Paris.

And that place, was of course _The Musain_.


	2. Dark New World

**What's up how's it going and all that jazz? Slow-starting first chapter for you all. Read on, young zombie lovers!**

**To _Darci The Thespian_: Hello again! Thank you for all of your previous reviews on things. The pairings, as usual, will be e/R, Joly/Musichetta/Bousset, Marius/Cosette and I'm not going to mention any more because I don't want to ruin the surprises further on!**

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way/shape/form own Les Mis.**

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Grantaire's motorcycle rumbled lowly as he pulled up in front of the darkened Musain. Just like the streets around it, which were loosely cordoned off by high buildings and winding streets, the lights has been extinguished – which was unusual because as far as he could tell the street lights were on timers and turned on of their own accord when the sun began to set.

Tucking his black helmet under one arm, Grantaire dismounted and yanked off the leather glove sticking to his left hand. The ride over, just a few streets, had been terrible and he was coated in sweat from fear and anticipation. He didn't know if everyone had managed to get here safely, not with those things roaming the streets, shambling along on broken legs with skin peeling from their wounds.

The thought that inside the café, his friends could be dead or dying… or worse, they could not be there at all.

Bringing himself up to the door, resting the un-gloved hand on the door handle, he strained his ears, listening for any delicate sounds, indicators that there were people alive.

There was shuffling, scraping chairs on wooden floor, hushed tones that made Grantaire's heart burst in elation. Even if it wasn't his friends, there were people alive in there.

_"Shh!"_

_"It's him, right?"_

_"Of course it is."_

The last voice made him jerk the door open in haste, even though he knew it creaked like a son of a bitch if it was pulled too quickly.

But even if it did creak, and that one creak brought the attention of even one of those things, it was all worth it to know for sure, be safe in the knowledge that his friends listened to him – for once – and all came here immediately.

Before he could even say anything, a long-fingered, ringed hand shot out from the darkness and gripped his leather jacket too close to his neck and yanked with all the force of a woman scorned. His body tumbled without warning into a grasping army of hands and arms, limbs that terrified him senseless until they pulled away slightly and he could see them – tanned, muscular, white, pudgy, lean and dark, all the arms of his closest friends.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing opening that door like that? You know who many of those things you could attract with that shit?" A feminine yet hoarse voice assaulted him, as he ran the gloveless hand from his neck to his middle and flexed his shoulders back slightly to right the leather.

"Good to see you're still alive too, Eponine,"

Eponine gave him a cocky smile that pulled her thin lips taunt against crooked teeth and crinkled her brown eyes.

"Ain't nothing going to kill me, sunshine." So she turned her attention to the hands and arms that had assaulted him. Grantaire grinned in her direction – the girl that was as tough as nails with the attitude to match, the one he had met when she was still a homeless runaway trying to get her brother away from their abusive home. She was his first friend, and he was glad she was alive.

Suddenly acutely aware of the closeness of the room, people breathing down his neck with fear and heavy lungs, Grantaire turned to see their wide eyes glistening with terror, with tears left unshed.

He counted them all as best he could: Eponine, her little brother Gavroche clutching a baseball bat. Courfeyrac and Bahorel with blood staining both of their dress shirts, Feuilly clean except for traces of paint and charcoal from his day job, Combeferre; Joly, Bousset and Musichetta stood together with their hands clasped three ways. Marius, his girlfriend Cosette and her father.

Jehan stood defiantly in front of them all, as if protecting them from whatever could come slashing through the door.

And there, right beside them all, the blond he was looking for, angelic even though he too had red smearing his cheek and sleeves and was stotic as marble: Enjolras.

Relieved, Grantaire sighed. They were all accounted for, all of the people that mattered enough, and they could survive this nightmare if they tried.

No-one said anything for the longest time; they all moved to sit on chairs and tables that weren't being used to barricade non-essential doors and windows. Grantaire stationed himself behind the bar with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and tequila in the other, alternating between pouring for others and drinking straight from the bottle himself.

If the world was ending, what did it matter if he was drunk for one day more?

For almost an hour they drank away the fear that they might all die in this mess.

Eventually, the silence became too close for Courfeyrac, who had been pushing his hair over and away from his face in frustration for twenty minutes already. The gaze of the room collectively snapped to him when he cleared his throat and started speaking.

"Bahorel and I were out last night. Picking up girls,"

Bahorel grinned cheekily at the memory of him and Courfeyrac getting blindingly drunk and trying to out-do each other with awful pick-up lines. None of which worked, of course, but there were enough girls there to choose from.

"We were drunk, coming home… we passed this alley and heard some weird noises," He stopped for a moment, long enough to push his hair about again while grimacing and scowling at nothing.

"Thought it was just somebody getting lucky, you know? Anyway, we were laughing, calling out to them and then it stopped… this guy just stopped what he was doing and he starts… shambling down this alley to us, gurgling at us and it's like, suddenly he's really close and we can see his face. He was covered in blood, his mouth… open… dripping blood and… I don't know it was like black _goo_…"

Cosette turned her face away and buried it into her father's chest. She'd had enough of Courfeyrac's story, it was too soon and the tequila Grantaire had given to her was sitting heavy in her stomach.

"Bahorel ambushed him, ran him into the wall and held him there… while I smashed his head with something. I don't know what it was. Stopped him moving. Dead…"

Bahorel slumped in his seat, face screwed up in unpleasant memory of something he wasn't proud of. He didn't mind fighting – liked it, even – but killing a guy? That was never on his list of things to do before he turned thirty.

Courfeyrac did the same thing, but turned his gaze downward in shame.

It wasn't their fault, not at all, and they knew this. They were doing what they had to do to survive.

"You got him in the head, huh?" Grantaire glanced at one of the boarded windows as he asked. Courfeyrac nodded silently, although Grantaire missed it, feeling like he'd said enough for one night. "Sounds about right for what they are. Zombies."

A murmur ran through the group, escalating to quiet chatter and then loud shouts. It continued for a few moments before Musichetta had enough and raised her voice loud enough to have people fall into silence.

"Enough!" She stood up abruptly, forgetting that she was still connected to Joly and Bousset, whom she managed to yank forward with her. Her russet eyes blazed out, pinning each and every one of them to their seats, and even in the darkness of the room they could all see her anger.

Their voices fell all at once, like a radio being flicked off – total silence.

"If we keep yelling at each other we'll attract a ton of these… zombie things. So shut up." And she sat back down between her boys and returned to the comfort of their touch.

Contemplating their now-found fates, the group glanced at each other fearfully, unsure of what they were supposed to do now. Survive, they guessed.

"Let's turn in for the night. We need to be rest before we try and figure this out in the morning." Enjolras had listened intently all night, since he was the second to arrive (just after Eponine and Gavroche) and managed to hear a story from each and every one of his friends about the nightmares they'd seen. Now, he dragged his chair away from the centre, knowing that his lack of input made them all uneasy.

He didn't know what to do to keep his rag-tag bunch of friends together and safe, not in this dark new world of death.


	3. Montparnasse

**Please don't hurt me. I know it's been too long since I updated but I just started university and life is crazy and I have _so many assignments_. Therfore, updates will be few and far between.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Les Mis. In fact, I don't even own the money to get the bus to uni for the next week so I'm pretty screwed right now.**

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"I don't know what you're all so worried about. Zombies are designed to fail. Their main form of reproduction - biting people - is also their only source of food _and_ their top predator. They try to bite, humans will kill them. A few days, weeks maybe, and this will all be over."

Joly was the first of them to reason his way out of their predicament when they woke up. Tiredness flooded through the group, but the damp light filtering through cracks in the barricade kept them all well awake - and well aware of the corpses moving without mission outside their safe haven.

"Scientifically speaking, you are correct," Combeferre began, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, "but I don't think science can explain the existence of the walking dead, so it would make sense for them the defy science all together."

Enjolras had his head in his hands, trying to work around the conversation on a plan. Any plan, so long as he could calculate it down to the last detail; like Effie Trinket only unchangingly blond.

And he didn't care much for manners.

Grantaire had been groggily wandering past the windows, poking at the barricades to check that they were still stable, and on occasion peeking through the gaps to count how many zombies had meandered their way to them.

"There's no point in trying to reason with this situation. There is no reason for zombies. They're un-reasonable." He mumbled, turning away from the window where he had made uncomfortable eye contact with what was probably once a very attractive woman, now gnawed at, missing half a rib cage and a meter of intestine.

"We can't stay here much longer."

Jehan took his place at the windows, utterly enthralled by the movement outside.

"I've never seen a dead human before," It slipped from his lips before he could stop it, curiosity getting the better of him. It earned him a few confused looks, a few scared, but mostly no-one cared for Jehan's questionable interests in that moment.

Combeferre took a seat at the large wooden table left untouched in the centre of the room, opposite Enjolras, and cleared his throat.

"What shall we do?"

Enjolras lifted his head, curls scraped through his fingers with dried blood and heavy eyes. There was no plan for this situation, so he jerked his head towards Grantaire.

"Ask the expert."

Hearing this, Grantaire took his own seat, followed closely by the rest of the group, eager to hear a plan of escape. Jehan remained, glancing out the window, glancing back at his friends.

But there was nothing to say - there was no escape for them, they were entirely surrounded, with no weapons to speak of, no transport save a motorbike, and not a shred of hope between them.

"Have we all quite finished feeling sorry for ourselves?" Cosette demanded, standing from her chair and leaning forward on the table with her hands, "Between us, there has got to be something we can do..."

And then she was interrupted, with a whistle and a bang and the revving of an engine; outside, another motorbike was speeding through the street. The fifteen of them flocked to windows, Eponine to the door, clamoring over each other for a better look outside.

The huge black monster was tearing through the street, growling as it went, with the rider atop swinging out with a glinting silver blade, taking zombie after zombie down. As it reached the Musain, the rider pulled the handle to the side, simultaneously slamming the breaks, and skidded full-circle. With their back now to the café, it was clear that they were swinging a long sword - a heavy blade, a traditional knights handle.

"Please tell me it's not..."

"It definitely is."

"Fuck."

The rider dismounted, zombies encroaching on them quickly, and began banging on the door - Eponine jumped backwards in surprise, but righted herself quickly, brushing the fear from her sweater with shaking hands.

"Let me the_ fuck_ in, you assholes! I know you're in there!" Each word was punctuated with another _bang_, an unfortunate noise that was attracting zombies at an alarming rate-

"_Shit,_" And then the rider swung the sword, taking the head off of three zombies in one swipe.

"Let him in - let him in!" Jehan howled, leaping for the door - Bahorel caught him around the waist and held him, thrashing and fighting all the way, just as Eponine unlatched the door and pulled him in as she had done to Grantaire the night before.

"God_damnit_, Montparnasse! What do you think you're doing?" Eponine had her hands on her knees and was breathing hard despite not having physically exerted herself.

Fear had caught her breath and held it.

Montparnasse was sprawled on the floor at her feet, sword casually discarded next to him, bloodied and blunted and panting just as hard as she was. He raised his head to look her in the eye: "Trying to stay... _the fuck_... alive!" and then he let his head drop back to the floor, dark hair fanning around his head like a black halo.

No-one had the time to relax; just as Bahorel let Jehan loose, he picked up the fallen sword, pointing it straight at Montparnasse's heart.

"Jehan..." Combeferre began, uncertain. He was the one that wanted to let him in - the only one that wanted to let him in - and now he was holding a blade to his chest with all the fury of the gods, his face burning red but hands shaking.

The sword wobbled in his grasp.

Montparnasse held his palms up, surrendering.

"_Have you been bitten?"_

It was all Jehan asked, but even those words tumbled from his mouth with no real meaning, just as something he picked up from Grantaire.

In defence, Montparnasse laughed in his face. Outright, clutch-at-your-sides laughter, to which Jehan responded by dropping the sword in disgust at his feet, feeling more than a little pathetic in that moment.

"Do you seriously think I would come here if i had been bitten?" Montparnasse turned at the end of his laughing fit, suddenly growing dark in demeanor, glowering at each of the group in turn.

"Do you _really_ think I would put you all in that kind of danger?" He might have still been on the hard wood floor, propped up by his elbows, but he was as menacing as much as he was beautiful: snow white from the cold, lips red - though chapped - and the black hair of a raven feather.

It was his beauty that stopped people from remembering: he'd killed more men than he'd had birthdays. He was dangerous.

And so, he was _useful_.

Enjolras stepped forward - a fraction of a second before Grantaire did - and offered Montparnasse his hand.

"No, we don't."

Montparnasse took the outstretched hand and pulled himself to his feet, solid ground beneath his boots. He didn't let go of Enjolras' hand, at least not for a moment - and in that, any onlooker would see one thing: the angel and the devil as one force.

"One thing -" Enjolras looked pointedly at the fallen sword, "Where did you get that?"

Montparnasse smiled, the edges of his lips turning up with menace - a grin that put the chesire cat to shame.

"Plenty more where that came from."


End file.
